Saturday, May 10, 2014

I ran across this news item regarding a proposed change to the Missouri State Constitution.

"The amendment would define the right to bear arms as "unalienable" and require the state to defend against any "infringement" of that right. It would also include keeping ammunition and defending one's "family" with a firearm as guaranteed constitutional rights.The state constitution already protects the right to bear arms in defense of an individual's home, property and person. Supporters contend the measure would force courts to use a higher standard of review when considering the constitutionality of gun controls."

One thing I found interesting was the mention of a failed initiative vote to require a shall issue permit system which even though spending in favor of the initiative greatly outspent its opponents, it still failed. After the failure to pass the legislation by initiative, it ended up being passed through the legislature.

A twenty-seven year old Japanese man was arrested on suspicion of printing and possessing guns. This is the first instance of such an arrest being made in Japan. P

According to ANN News, Yoshitomo Imura allegedly downloaded gun blueprints from a foreign site and then printed the resin guns with his 3D printer. P

Imura had apparently uploaded videos to YouTube in which he fired off what looks to be a 3D printed pistol. Last month, police seized five 3D printed guns from Imura's Kawasaki City home.

According to authorities, it was possible with two of the guns to pierce over ten pieces of plywood by firing rounds, and thus, the police deemed it was possible to use the guns to kill. P

"I made them myself," Imura is quoted as saying, "but, I didn't know they were illegal."

It is possible to own guns in Japan, but the country has incredibly strict firearms regulations. It's not clear whether others will be also arrested for printing guns, but we're pretty sure this wry Twitter user will evade the law with his printed "gun."

This undated photo released by the Vermont National Guard shows Kryn Miner, an Army veteran who was shot and killed by a relative on April 26, 2014 in Essex, Vt., after Miner had threatened family members with a gun. No one has been charged in the shooting. Miner, who had suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder and traumatic brain injury, held the position of chief warrant officer 2 and was assigned to the headquarters company of the Guard's 86th Infantry Brigade Combat Team.

No charges will be filed against the child of Kryn Miner, 44, a veteran suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder and traumatic brain injury, who was shot and killed inside the family's Essex Junction home last month.
Miner had threatened to kill his four children, physically assaulted his wife and threw a loaded handgun to the teen who came to her aid.
"Do you want to play the gun game?" Miner — who served in the 82nd Airborne Division and was sniper qualified — asked the teen, according to authorities. The teen said no, but fired six shots when Miner pulled another gun from a bag. Miner was hit five times.

Kaarma’s live-in girlfriend told neighbors that someone had stolen
marijuana from the firefighter’s garage stash on several occasions.
Investigators say they removed a glass jar full of pot during the course
of their investigation.

Some
self-defense experts say the shooting may become a limit-tester for a
new breed of self-defense laws debated ferociously since the killing of
unarmed teenager Trayvon Martin in Sanford, Fla., in 2012.

Seriously, can you actually lure someone and kill them while claiming self-defence? Especially if they are unarmed? How can people seriously defend the luring and murder of someone? Have people in the US completely lost it?

A Rogersville man was arrested early Saturday morning after allegedly firing a handgun in the proximity of his wife and three children during an alcohol-fueled argument.

Around 3:37 a.m. Saturday, Hawkins County Sheriff's Office Deputy Gary Lawson was dispatched to 312 Arrow Head Drive in Rogersville on a complaint of a domestic dispute involving a firearm.

Upon his arrival, Lawson reportedly observed a woman and three female children running from the residence screaming.

Through her daughter Mrs. Salinas stated that her husband, Miguel Angel Salinas, 31, of that address, had been drinking that night and started arguing with her.

"Then he pulled a pistol out and pointed it at her, and told her he would kill her," Lawson stated in his report. "Griselda stated they went outside where he fired one shot into the air. Griselda said she went back into the residence, where Miguel then fired the weapon inside the residence close to where she was standing."

Mr. Salinas turned over the Beretta .25-caliber handgun, which was hidden in a couch cushion.

The pistol had a spent shell casing stuck in the chamber, and Lawson reported observing that the barrel of the pistol was still warm to the touch.

PoliticoHillary Clinton on Tuesday offered her most detailed comments on domestic policy in months, calling for tighter gun restrictions while also going to bat for Obamacare and warning that rising economic inequality is contributing to “social collapse.”

As to whether she’ll run for the White House, however, Clinton said she’s still mulling it because there’s “a cost to everything.”

The former secretary of state, who would be the Democratic frontrunner in 2016 should she run, was delivering the keynote address at a conference held by the National Council for Behavioral Health, an organization that focuses on mental health.

“We have to rein in what has become [an] almost article of faith, that anybody can own a gun anywhere, anytime. And I don’t believe that,” she said, as applause drowned her out.

"Perhaps hypocritical folks who only want Freedom of Speech to apply to those who agree with their liberal agenda might want to consider that the evil terrorists who were the brunt of my one-liner would be the first to strip away ALL our rights if given the chance. That’s why we do whatever we can to prevent them from killing innocent people. And for that, we should NEVER apologize."

Think the common law gave people the right to carry weapons or that walking about with a weapon is in someway not something the cops should investigate?

Here are some old legal texts about carrying weapons in public:The Country Justice, by Michael Dalton, from a facsimile of the 1655
edition, as produced in 1996 by The Legal Classics Library, Special Edition Copyright, Division of Gryphon Editions, New York.

So of such as shall carry any Gunnes, Dagges, or Pistols
that be charged; or that shall go apparelled with privy Coats or
Doublets, the Justice may cause them to finde sureties for the Peace,
and
may take away such weapons.

William Rawle, A View of the Constitution of the United States 125--26 1829 (2d ed.)

This right ought not, however, in any government, to be
abused to the disturbance of the public peace.

An assemblage of persons with arms, for an unlawful
purpose, is an indictable offence, and even the carrying of
arms abroad by a single individual, attended with circumstances
giving just reason to fear that he purposes to make
an unlawful use of them, would be sufficient cause to require
him to give surety of the peace. If he refused he
would be liable to imprisonment.

By the way, the First Amendment right is:

or the right of the people peaceably to assemble

I know that the term "conservative" has come to have a meaning of something along the lines of being out of touch with reality, or just plain off insane in United States usage, but that shouldn't have changed the meaning of the term peaceably to mean people who are armed.

I don't care what planet you are from or what universe you inhabit in your diseased minds, but carrying weapons and peaceably are incompatible.

As for people calling the cops on open carriers, people are immune from prosecution if you have a valid belief that a crime
might be committed. As one site said, criminals feel free to commit crimes, damaging more communities and individuals if no one reports
suspicious activity or reports a crime.

If
anything, these idiots are a godsend for a mass shooter since they will
hope that people will not notice them and do anything.

I think most police departments would rather investigate a person with a gun than have a massacre.

If anyone should get shit for wasting police time, it's the open carriers. But, they want to attract police attention.

And the actual standard would be that the activity "Raises a reasonable concern for public safety." In other words, the cops would be justified in checking out the open carry person in Georgia where he was intimidating the people at a little league game would not be based upon his merely carrying, but because he was acting in a way that was disturbing the peace.

After all, wouldn't you want to be certain that someone you didn't know who was carrying a gun wasn't a threat?

Or would you prefer that you are enabling someone who slaughters in a mass shooting?See also:

The backyard where the Déjà Vu photo was taken
The owner of the house further writes to 4WaySite:
"My parents somehow got in with the local rock & roll network, as our house was also leased by members of The Grateful Dead, and Dave Mason. Steve Miller lived up the hill from us for a time during the late 70’s. Neil Schon and another Journey band member also lived nearby.
My parents bought the property in the early 60’s (c. 1962) as a second home and winter rental property. I can remember my father talking about the lease for the house to CSN. He had a 'NO CROSBY' clause built into the lease preventing David from setting foot on the property. Crosby had a reputation for trashing places and my father wanted to keep the house in tact. Well, as you can see, that clause was ignored. However, all our living room furniture was removed and placed in the open air car port during the time they were there. Needless to say the furniture did not do well in the car port."

Graham Nash: "We tried to look like we thought our ancestors might have looked one hundred years ago".

After visiting a costume store, they congregated in Crosby's backyard. Each member had been transformed: Crosby into Buffalo Bill Cody (complete with rifle), Stills into a Confederate soldier, Nash into a pipe-smoking worker, Young a cagey gunfighter. Again the owner of the house: "The chest used as a prop in the photo, belongs to us and is still in the house."

Strong enough, indeed, that Raymond soon beat his own hasty retreat, ending his "smart gun" sales plan before it had begun--but not without posting a rage-filled, whiskey-fueled, obscenity-laden rant on video (see sidebar video if extensive use of very strong language does not offend you) condemning gun rights advocates who had expressed their objections to his plan.

Kurt is so passionate about the cause, he feels no need to constrain himself within the bounds of honesty. Anyone who watched the video knows that Mr. Raymond was not railing against "gun rights advocates who had expressed their objections to his plan." He was railing against the fanatics who THREATENED HIS LIFE because of his plan to reach fence sitters and gun control folks by selling smart guns.By calling the man a quisling, Kurt, who has an exceptional grasp of the English language and its nuances, is purposely supporting those fanatics and encouraging others to act similarly.

Link provided by Flying Junior, who lives in San Diego, with the following comment:Just heard about this one. Should fire up the faithful. The consensus around here is the guy most likely had been drinking because it is very difficult to miss the border into Mexico. Still, some claim it is plausible. Interstate Freeway Five terminates at the Mexican border, but there are numerous signs warning of the approaching border, a sign that warns last U.S. exit and even a last ditch U-turn that leaves you in U.S. soil.

This guy just blew right up to the Mexico-U.S.A. border at San Ysidro and actually told Mexican Customs that he had three guns in the car. Languishing in the Tijuana Penitentiary System awaiting trial. They will no doubt figure out a way to send him home once he appears before a judge. One funny thing about this story. He actually tried to escape by climbing a wall and the Mexican guard was able to scare him back by firing into the wall instead of trying to kill him. I think he wants the American Embassy to save him.

Andrew Tahmooressi said he was hoping for a new beginning when he drove from Florida to California in March, with all of his worldly possessions inside his Ford F-150 truck. The 25-year-old Marine reservist had dropped out of college, broken up with his girlfriend, and was uncertain of his future.

But a trip to Mexico certainly was not part of his plan, he said.

Tahmooressi is being held in a Tijuana prison on federal weapons charges — all the result, he said, of missing the last exit on Interstate 5 and accidentally crossing the border with three firearms.

Sgt. Andrew Tahmooressi --- is being held at Tijuana's La Mesa Penitentiary. The 25 year old Marine Corps combat veteran is being held on weapons charges. Alejandro Tamayo

“I never meant to be in Mexico,” Tahmooressi said in an interview Saturday afternoon at the La Mesa State Penitentiary. “I had no bad intentions, I had no intentions of smuggling my weapons, I had no intentions of selling them or anything of the sort.”

The charges include possession of two firearms meant for exclusive use of the Mexican military; bail is not permitted. If convicted, he faces six to 21 years in a Mexican prison, said his Tijuana attorneys.

Tahmooressi’s arrest in Mexico came less than two weeks after arriving in San Diego from Daytona Beach, where he had most recently been living. He had abandoned studies to be a pilot, then a mechanical engineer, and had recently broken up with his girlfriend. He had driven across the country with everything he owned, including a motorcycle, bicycle and three firearms: a 12-gauge shotgun, a .45 caliber pistol, and an AR-15, all registered.

In District of Columbia v. Heller,
Justice Scalia engaged in a revisionist exercise, rewriting history to
further his ideological agenda. If you have any doubts about this
proposition, just consider the following: according to Heller’s
logic, it would have been okay for the first Congress to pass a law
making muskets illegal in the District of Columbia, but Congress would
have been prohibited from banning dueling pistols. Such a conclusion is
pretty hard to reconcile with the Amendment’s text and history.

Heller’s
misuse of history borders on the scandalous, but we are pretty much
stuck with it. The decision also points to history as the starting point
for evaluating gun laws. Of course, this raises the thorny question
about which history matters most when seeking to understand the meaning
and scope of the right: Founding era, Reconstruction, the last century
(or the future—Heller already assumes the existence of time travel—why not)?

Some gun rights advocates interpret Heller’s assertion that “constitutional rights are enshrined with the scope they were understood to have when the people adopted them"
to mean only laws on the books in 1791 count. This claim about original
meaning is seriously flawed. The original meaning of a text is not the
same as the original expected application of the text. Indeed, Scalia’s
opinion mocks the idea that the right to bear arms would only apply to
Revolutionary era muskets; so, if that it is true, it is hard to see how
only laws regulating muskets are legal from a constitutional
perspective.

Finally, gun rights champions ought
to be a bit more careful about what they wish for, because sometimes
wishes come true. If we froze the Second Amendment’s meaning and scope
as of 1791, it would mean no right to stand your ground; no right to
carry, in most cases; required government inspection of privately owned firearms; and a host of other regulations. Perhaps we should turn the clock back to 1791 and give gun rights extremists the real historical Second Amendment they crave.

I trust Saul Cornell on this subject far more than some asshole in the internet.

John David LaDue had it all figured out. He would kill his mother, father and sister and then create a diversion to keep first responders busy while he went to Waseca Junior/Senior High School to wreak havoc.

There, the 17-year-old planned to set off pressure-cooker bombs full of nails and metal ball bearings in the cafeteria. Students who weren’t maimed or killed would be gunned down in the halls, he told police.

After his arrest Tuesday, the high school junior said he intended to kill “as many students as he could,” before he was killed by the SWAT team, according to charging documents filed in Waseca County District Court.

LaDue was charged Thursday with four counts of attempted first-degree murder, two counts of first-degree damage to property and six counts of possession of a bomb by someone under 18. Police found seven firearms and at least six completed bombs in his bedroom and in the storage unit where he was arrested.

The criminal complaint said LaDue told police that he originally planned the attack for April 20, the anniversary of the Columbine High School massacre that killed 13 people in Littleton, Colo., in 1999.

That was thwarted because that day was Easter Sunday and there was no school.

There was a time in Wichita when an ordinance required adults to properly secure guns around children.

Some people, including the mayor, wish it was still that way. Others say that a law is not the solution to protecting children.

For 12 years, Wichita had an ordinance regulating gun storage around children. The Wichita law required that guns be properly secured if someone under 18 could have access and required that adults keep guns unloaded, locked away or secured with trigger locks. The City Council adopted the ordinance – punishable by a fine of up to $2,500 and up to a year in jail – in 1993 after a rash of accidental shootings involving children. In a little over two years, from January 1991 through April 1993, police recorded 69 firearms accidents in Wichita that resulted in death or injury. In 26 of the cases, the victim was under 18.

In 2005, the Wichita gun storage ordinance was repealed because a state law nullified it.

After the ordinance was repealed, from 2007 through 2013, Wichita police recorded on average eight accidental shootings at homes each year, according to numbers Lt. Dan East provided Friday. In 2013, 10 shootings were reported. No other details of those accidental shootings, including whether they involved children, were available, East said.

On the state level, there is no law specifically involving safe gun storage, said Sedgwick County District Attorney Marc Bennett.

Last month, the governor signed into law a bill that will prohibit local governments from enforcing local gun ordinances and will make gun laws uniform across the state.

A gunman shot six people at an Arkansas home Saturday, killing a man and a teenager and critically wounding two boys, before fatally shooting a worker at a nearby business, police said.

The suspected gunman was later found dead of a gunshot wound in the driver's seat of a stopped car, Jonesboro police Sgt. Doug Formon said at an evening news conference. It was not immediately clear if the gunshot was self-inflicted.

Formon said a man and a 13-year-old girl were killed Saturday afternoon inside the home in east Jonesboro, Arkansas, where it appeared a family was having a party or gathering.

Four other people were injured and were taken to hospitals in Memphis, Tennessee. Formon said the children, ages 8 and 10, were transported in critical condition.

Police received a 911 call about the shooting at the home around 1:00 p.m. Police responded at 1:22 p.m. to a report of a second shooting at a business near a U.S. highway. Forman said the worker was found shot to death at the second site, where construction and lawn work had been ongoing.

Around 3:30 p.m., Formon said, a farmer or passing motorist called 911 to report a car parked in the middle of a county road. A deputy responded and found the stopped car with the suspected gunman inside.

Leaders of two Christian denominations in Georgia said this week that guns had no place in their churches and they would opt out of a new state law allowing firearms in houses of worship as part of a broad expansion of gun rights.

The law, which takes effect on July 1, permits lawful gun owners to bring weapons into public places such as churches and bars, but allows church officials and bar owners to ban guns from their buildings.

Atlanta's Catholic archbishop, Wilton Gregory, wrote in the diocese's newspaper on Wednesday that he opposed the measure, which was passed by the state's Republican-led legislature and signed last month by Republican Governor Nathan Deal.

"The last thing we need is more firearms in public places, especially in those places frequented by children and the vulnerable," Gregory said, adding he will allow only police and military officials to bring weapons into diocesan churches.

The state's two Episcopal bishops have announced similar decisions for that denomination's churches in Georgia.

"My judgment and this policy are based on the normative understanding of the teachings of Jesus as the Episcopal Church has received them," the Reverend Robert Wright, bishop of the church's Atlanta diocese, wrote on Monday.

After postponing debate on the important Second Amendment case for two consecutive weeks, the Supreme Court declined to hear Drake v. Jerejian in orders released this morning.

The proposed case would have challenged strict ‘may-issue’ practices. At the center of it was John Drake, a New Jersey ATM business owner, who was denied a concealed carry permit because he could not satisfy the state’s definition of “good cause.”

The Second Amendment Foundation, the National Rifle Association, 19 states and 34 congressional representatives supported the lawsuit.

The Supreme Court did not comment on reasons why it denied the case and is not required to. The orders released today, from Friday’s conference, denied certiorari for more than 100 cases including Drake, while granting to hear two.

A Jackson ophthalmologist is accused of shooting his wife in their home on Wednesday night. Jackson Police Department spokeswoman Colendula Green said Bill Mayfield, 68, was charged with murder after he shot Susan Mayfield, 67, during what appears to have been a domestic disturbance at their home on St. Andrews Drive. Susan Mayfield reportedly was transported by ambulance and died at the hospital.
Susan Mayfield's brother-in-law, Tom Davis, said Bill Mayfield has Parkinson's Disease, and had been on medications that had made him act erratically in the past, including one other time in which he thought Susan was threatening him. "I have never known two people more loving and devoted to each other. This is just a tragic accident that has ruined the lives of two wonderful people," said Davis, of Inman, SC.

A man linked to a double shooting in Nashua, N.H., late yesterday afternoon died last night of what police described as a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head while sitting in a car parked near Market Basket at 700 Essex St.

Police would not release the name of the man, who was described as being in his early to mid-30s and with possible ties to the Lawrence area.

About 9 p.m., Lawrence Police Sgt. Shawn Quaglietta spotted a car matching one mentioned less than an hour earlier in police bulletins in connection with the double shooting in Nashua hours earlier.

Soon after Quaglietta spotted the car, the man shot himself. Quaglietta called for an ambulance as other detectives and patrol officers converged on the scene.

Two teenagers are charged in what authorities say was an accidental shooting death of a Kansas City woman.

Jackson County authorities say 40-year-old Tina Castor died Tuesday after she was shot while sitting in a friend's car.

The
two suspects, both 16, were playing with guns in the back seat of the
car. Investigators say one of the teenagers, a relative of Castro's,
touched a trigger of a gun and fired a single shot into her back. She
died at the scene.

The Kansas City
Star reports the teenagers have been charged as juveniles with
involuntary manslaughter and armed criminal action.

After more than an hour of discussion Thursday, it appeared
legislation creating an exemption to state concealed weapons laws during
a mandatory evacuation might be dead this legislative session.

The Senate bill (SB 296) allows for those without a permit to carry a
concealed weapon when the governor calls for a mandatory state of
emergency like a hurricane. An amendment that passed 23-15 limited the
exemption to 24 hours after the evacuation is declared.

That didn’t sit well with the bill’s sponsor, state Sen. Jeff
Brandes, R-St. Petersburg, so he “temporarily postponed” his bill. With
just one day left in this year’s legislative session, it means the bill
likely won’t pass.

State Sen. Jack Latvala, R-Clearwater, the amendment’s author, said
the underlying bill didn’t give clear enough parameters to when the
exemption ended.

“Where I have a little difficulty is the lack of specificity in what
your language means,” he said of the amendment, which was written by
the Florida Sheriff’s Association.

Brandes said he opposed the amendment because he didn’t want people to get in trouble during the “25th hour.”